Star Nosed Mole Can Smell Underwater

I’m struggling to figure out which is the coolest part of this story - that such a thing as a star-nosed mole exists, with its crazy nasal tentacles, that it can swim underwater, or that when it’s swimming it can sniff out tasty morsels of food. I think this makes the star-nosed mole triply-awesome. Or maybe aweome³. From New Scientist:

High speed video footage shows that the star-nosed mole and the water shrew sniff through water by quickly re-inhaling the air bubbles that leave their nostrils.
Based on these counter-intuitive findings, researchers speculate that other semi-aquatic mammals might also have the capacity to pick up on underwater scents.

Video below the fold…

4 comments January 16th, 2008